{Many thanks to Gigi Leonard from the Roadside Scholar who wrote this interesting read about Nancy Gardner and Burt Isenstein}
Approaching the home and studio of prolific, award-winning ceramists Nancy Gardner and Burt Isenstein is a little bit like strolling into a fairytale. Their home sits on a wide street in a little town called Oak Park near Chicago, surrounded by tall, leafy trees. It is urbane but quiet. Walking down the narrow pathway down the side of their house takes you to their backyard and charming studio, with an inviting flagstone path and beckoning door. Once inside the door, the full force of creative energy is so welcoming that it is difficult to leave.
Looking around, you can see their minds are busily at work here. Gorgeous, functional hand-built earthenware accessories are carefully grouped everywhere you look, all in various stages of completion. The light streams in from the south, naturally illuminating the places where Nancy likes to build her one of a kind pieces. The collection is special – tactile, casual and thoughtfully designed. You could easily set a gorgeous table with these pieces, and while nothing would be exactly the same, it would all flow together effortlessly.
Nancy finds working with the raw, wet clay to be quite appealing, and strives to keep the collection looking that way. She and Burt think quite the opposite from a certain fine craft school of thought – that the best things look like they have never been touched by a human hand. Nothing here looks polished or produced, and that’s the way they like it.
There are many different ways to approaching perfection in craft, and Nancy and Burt like to keep the “hand” in “handmade” whenever possible. Decorative arts, vintage wallpaper, art and textiles all serve as inspiration, and the infrequently repeated designs created on the pieces make them highly collectible. Once formed in raw (green) clay using traditional pinch and coil methods, the dry pieces are painted with underglazes and fired once to cone 04, about 1900 degrees Fahrenheit. Once they are dry, a final glaze is put on afterwards.
I hope sometime you will be able to see Nancy and Burt’s work in person. It transforms itself when you touch it – lumpy, shiny and warm, filled with rich color and detail, it almost dances in your hands. After painstakingly creating collections for the last 20 years and selling to collectors all around the world, it truly is a testament to their talent to see the joy and care still coming through in every piece they make, and it’s inspiring to see that the passion for and commitment to their craft remains just as strong with each passing year.
This is what happens when you love what you do.
Nancy and Burt sell at exclusive retail fairs and now online too! They will be selling their newest collection at the 2008 American Craft Council show in Baltimore from February 22nd-24th. If you can’t make it there in person, be sure to stop by their website, blog or Etsy shop to say hello!
A little bit more about the writer of this lovely read, Gigi Leonard from the Roadside Scholar:
Gigi has always enjoyed creative home adornments and au courant interiors, and she is a former proprietress of two shops in Chicago, Whimsy and piNk. Whimsy featured contemporary handmade items for home and body. The most popular departments were glass, ceramics, jewelry, books, bath and tabletop accessories. piNk. was opened after Whimsy and featured trendy women's handbags, indie makeup lines, hair accessories and stationery. She enjoyed cultivating a well-edited selection and creating beautiful displays, and fortunately people enjoyed my modern tastes. Both boutiques were very beloved back in the day. She ran them for about 10 years, but sadly the tides of the economy turned and the stores had to close...
...After keeping herself in exile for a while to heal emotionally from the trauma of closing up shop, shethe Roadside Scholar, these are the images of some of her beautiful finds! Gigi told me she enjoys the hunt for unique treasures for the home, and to me the internet is a vast playground! She is having a lot of fun pecking around and presenting her discoveries to the public. It's sort of like what she used to do except she sits in her bright little office instead of her stores! It is so gratifying to see that she has connected with people from all over the world who, like her enjoy taking an eclectic adventure everyday. She is planning to write full time for her blog this year and she is keeping her options open as far as retailing is concerned, but for now she feels so lucky and happy to have found another place to proclaim my passion for style, art and design..it's a blast!...Gigi says. {Thank youso much Gigi }
